Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Trusting strangers
Is it a good idea to trust strangers? Obviously the sensible answer has to be "it depends". In the same way: are some strangers too trusting? Again the answer is "probably".
Sometimes a little trust (or "faith") can be a good thing. I was chairing a meeting lastweek and had a number of additional delegates foisted on me. At the time, I had absolutely no idea what they wanted. Fortunately, I'd done sufficient preparation prior to the meeting to be sufficiently confident to ask them what they wanted from the meeting. As they told me, it became clear to everyone in the meeting that none of the people in the room were in possession of all the facts. In fact, it was clear that the single most useful thing that we could do was exchange information.In the end we managed to achieve the meeting objective, exchange some background information and set up a follow-up meeting. (oh, and we spent the evening in the pub).
Maybe we were all too trusting but the results were good on this occassion.
Sometimes a little trust (or "faith") can be a good thing. I was chairing a meeting lastweek and had a number of additional delegates foisted on me. At the time, I had absolutely no idea what they wanted. Fortunately, I'd done sufficient preparation prior to the meeting to be sufficiently confident to ask them what they wanted from the meeting. As they told me, it became clear to everyone in the meeting that none of the people in the room were in possession of all the facts. In fact, it was clear that the single most useful thing that we could do was exchange information.In the end we managed to achieve the meeting objective, exchange some background information and set up a follow-up meeting. (oh, and we spent the evening in the pub).
Maybe we were all too trusting but the results were good on this occassion.
# posted by tom_gillies @ 4:17 PM 
